Realer Than Real
by madelinesticks
Summary: Steam Powered Giraffe fic: Psilentasincjelli made a Tumblr post a while back about someone noticing the robots had human teeth and tongues. A twisted idea formed quite quickly in my mind. Warnings for semi-graphic gore, dudes. Enjoy. Michael notices something about the automatons.
1. Chapter 1

Michael always knew that when he grew up, he'd be a Mister Reed. Just like his dad was a Mister Reed, and just like his father before him, and so on. Even though he was a kid now, and the robots were taking care of him and Peter, one day it would be the other way around. He wouldn't be a Mister Reed for a little while yet though! After all, he was only ten, and Peter was only eleven. Neither of them were really fit to be proper engineers. Yet.  
Jon would play with him when Peter was in a mood - this was more of a common happening now that Peter was in middle school and Michael was in his last year of elementary. And Rabbit would help him with history and English assignments, and The Spine ould explain harder words to him. It had been Spine who'd been mostly in charge of teaching Michael how to read and write. And how to swim. And how to turn the dial on the toaster so that it was just right and not dark enough that Rabbit would mutter moody, jealous words as he passed Michael in the hall. Sometimes The Spine would read aloud, like he had when Michael was a really little kid. Six pretended not to be interested now that he was a "big kid", but he was still always there when Rabbit and Jon showed up to cluster around the arm chair. Michael liked The Spine's reading voice. It was soothing, and he could do different voices with no small amount of ease, and he didn't read too slow and stuttery like Rabbit did.  
His father had started inviting Michael into the workshop recently. While Michael wasn't allowed to touch anything, he could watch his father work, and see how the automatons reacted.  
The Spine was very quiet when he was being worked on. He'd speak only when spoken to, to give feedback, but mostly he'd just allow the engineer to do his work. He didn't mind taking new oil - he sat obediently and still when Michael's dad eased the pipe into his mouth - and he didn't mind even when he was powered down to have his insides worked on. The only thing he didn't like was having his photoreceptors offline. He tended to panic and grasp hard at the sides of the chair or the work table, giving an occasional whimper. Michael always took careful note of the words his father used to calm him down. He'd need those one day.  
The Jon was a little different. While he was just as obedient and happy to be worked on, he did not have any issue with being blind, as long as he knew that Mister Reed was still there. He chattered continuously to Peter V or Michael's dad as he was worked on though, happy and content to talk.  
Rabbit was the polar opposite of compliant. He was pernickety about being worked on. He struggled and complained and insisted on not being changed unless it was absolutely necessary. He was difficult, but Michael's dad was always sympathetic, and Michael understood exactly why Rabbit was so particular. He talked about his Pappy a lot, and Michael could completely understand why it was important to him. Michael could also understand why his dad had devoted his life to the robots. Could understand, and promised himself that he'd do the same, no matter what.

There were things he noticed about the automatons, as he grew older. At thirteen, he noticed The Spine sneaking a box into the house. When he asked, The Spine had shushed him and very quietly confided that it was make-up, so that he could go out without people thinking he was a robot. Michael noticed more of The Spine after that. Sometimes he did something multiple times, trying to make the movement more fluid. The Spine was very particular in ensuring he didn't come across as too automatonic. He never wanted people to be scared of him.  
There was other stuff, though. When Michael was sixteen, the robots had gone on some chat show that had a lot of facial close-ups. When sat at home watching it, Michael had viewed their mouths in a new way. He knew that their lips were made convincingly - he'd long since learned that from the feel of The Spine or Rabbit pressing a good night kiss to his forehead. Though, these days, he protested their wanting to do that. But as he'd noted the movement of lips and enamel teeth on the screen, he'd noticed the movement of their tongues. He'd never thought about them before, but really… Well. Robots weren't supposed to have tongues, were they?  
Michael frowned in concentration as the robots came back later that evening, staring at the shape of their mouths, the expressions, the tongues. Teeth could be made easily from well-polished enamel or, years back, porcelain. But tongues?  
Michael continued to watch them talk, thoughtful. Maybe plastic? But their tongues were wet. And Jon's was flexible enough that he could lick ice cream cones, and he did always talk about the taste. Michael frowned, tilting his head just slightly to the side.  
"Stop starin' at me!" Rabbit whined. Michael looked down, mumbling an apology. Rabbit got grumpy about the littlest of things, people taking too long in looking at him being one of the main ones. The Spine muttered something about "ridiculous". The Spine stood from his seat and took a slow few steps to wear Michael had taken the arm chair. He tapped the boy's cheek so that he'd look up, and then he leaned forwards and, in a deliberate movement, he opened his mouth to let Michael see.  
The Spine did not have a uvula, and from where his teeth ended his throat was a dark grey, stained with old oil marks. The insides of his cheeks were a pale pink, but that must have been paint. His teeth were attached to life-like gums of a darker red and Michael couldn't help but stare at the incredible detail on the roof of his mouth. His tongue was just like a human's, wet and red and covered in little taste buds. At the back, it seemed to be attached by a hard, black piece of plastic that spanned its base, carefully attached. His mouth was wet inside, and Michael could see small piping at the sides of his mouth, led up from the throat, which presumably was responsible for regulating the moisture.  
"You done?" The Spine asked. Michael swallowed at the movement of his lips so close, fascinated by the detail in his facial design.  
"Yessir." He mumbled. "Sorry."  
"No problem." The Spine said, though he sounded more than a little irritated.  
"Spine!" Rabbit hissed, tone chastising.  
"Aww, shut up about it!" The Spine grumbled, waving a dismissive hand. "He lives with us, Rabbit, he's gonna be our Mister Reed. It's fine." Rabbit have a short, annoyed sound, but then he went quiet. Michael looked between the two of them, completely baffled by the interaction. What was so wrong?

"Jon?" Michael asked. It was a week after that incident, and now he curled on the porch bench The Spine had once made as Jon lay on his stomach on the wood panel floor, sketching with his tongue sticking out of his mouth.  
"Huh?" Jon looked up, eyes bright and wide and a soft smile clear on his black lips. His hand went a little limp as he stopped concentrating on his hold of the pencil.  
"What's your tongue made of?" Jon's smile disappeared, expression turning solemn and serious. He gave a little snarl of sound, glaring at Michael with an intensely suspicious expression on his face. Michael swallowed at the plain distrust in his eyes. Jon had never ever looked at him like this before, not even when he'd accidentally crossed the wrong wire in the workshop and made him scream in pain. "C-can't you tel-"  
"Spine!" The Jon yelled loudly. Michael bit his lip hard, eyes slightly scared. The Spine came into the room, standing in the doorway with raised eyebrows and crossed arms. "I ain't meant ta talk about tongues." He mumbled, looking to The Spine with a slight frown, looking unhappy at having been questioned. Michael felt guilt in his stomach. The Spine gave a soft sigh as Jon shot the human a dirty look.  
"Mister Reed, I suggest you stop prodding at this." The Spine advised quietly.  
"But I just wanted to know wh-"  
"I know." The Spine nodded, seeming to understand his curiosity. "All the same, stop." Michael nodded slowly, giving a little frown. There were other things in the Manor that he wasn't allowed to know about or go near. It's just that he didn't quite get what was so special about the tongues - his interest was from an engineering stand point, after all. Michael mumbled an apology to Jon, but the brassold automaton kept quiet and pouting.

Jon was wearing wearing different gloves today. In the sixteen years Michael had had in the Manor with him, he'd worn red gloves like Rabbit's. Michael had seen Rabbit and The Spine's hands without gloves on. They were absolutely incredible in their build, the joints made well and perfectly functional, fingers as dextrous as any human's. The tips of Rabbit's fingers were a little sharp, which meant they didn't exactly lend themselves to stringed instruments, but they worked for keys and for whatever other action, especially under the gloves.  
Jon's gloves today were fingerless, and it seemed he found it easier to grab and play with things around the Manor. But his fingers, well. They weren't like The Spine's and Rabbit's, not at all. They looked human. Not even a doll's humanity, but they looked like actual flesh. He couldn't help but stare. When Jon noticed, he gave a loud, frustrated whine and left the room.  
Michael was careful to not comment at all, and tried not to stare for the sake of not upsetting The Jon. He tried to put the whole thing out of his mind.  
Not three weeks later, Michael found his answer. He never really decided whether he would have preferred not to, in the end.  
He was summoned by a yell from The Spine and loud, distressed whines from Jon. The larger automaton was clutching at his mouth, but refused to let Michael see the damage.  
His father came in, swiftly catching The Spine's arm and leading him downstairs. Michael and Jon both followed. The brassold 'bot hung in the doorway to the workshop as Michael followed his father, who indicated for The Spine to sit in the chair.  
The Spine obediently opened his mouth, though Michael could tell from his squint that it hurt. His father gave a low, sympathetic hum, reaching between The Spine's lips. Michael heard the click of something disconnecting.  
His father set the disconnected piece on the workshop table, surveying The Spine's mouth for further damage. Michael looked at the tongue, noting both the black piece at its base and the small rod that must have kept it connected.  
It had been bitten down on at the side, the faux flesh torn to reveal a silver rod that went up through the centre of it, presumably to allow The Spine to move it with dexterity.  
Michael frowned a little, seeing a little red ooze from the torn piece. It was realistic, really, but why…?  
Quite suddenly, Michael felt a lot like being sick as he stared at the human tongue, taking in the metal pieces that allowed The Spine to use it.  
"We'll have to get you a new one." His father said to The Spine. The Spine gave an unhappy sounding hum. "I know, it's a lot of effort. It's good that Michael will learn though. Teach him to extract necessary parts."  
Michael wanted to vomit, feeling faint. He didn't. Instead, he gave a slow, if scared, nod when his father looked to him.

Michael did not ask as to where it had come from when Rabbit dragged the body into the house. The man was tall, dark haired and pale skinned. He'd had blue eyes.  
Rabbit refused to allow Michael to help as he carried the dead man down the stairs. Michael felt like screaming. Felt like calling the police and sobbing. He did neither of those things.  
Calmly, quietly, he followed Rabbit down the stairs.  
His father had set out tools, set out a new table. A few jars, open, of some sort of preservative fluid were lined up on the counter. He offered Michael a comforting smile, but Michael did not smile back.  
"No family." Rabbit said, swiftly stripping the man of his clothing and rifling through his pockets to set a knife, a gold chain and a wallet on the side table. "Those ain't his, 'cept da knife. He was gonna mug someone else, but he ain't never gonna again now."  
Michael stared in horrified fascinatinion at the body.  
"We'll have to work quickly, Michael. We don't want rigor mortis setting in."  
"Yes, sir." Michael took the latex gloves the other handed to him, pulling them on. He obeyed every instruction, crushing his squeamishness and doing as he was told. The Spine and Rabbit watched.  
The tools were simple enough, Michael thought. A saw - electric. A scalpel, forceps, various other things. Some of it was hard. The easiest part was getting the bits they needed, though Michael didn't much enjoy the removal of the jaw to get at teeth still in their gums. The tongue was easy. Fingers were even easier.  
The eyes were hard. Michael was ordered to just watch as his father carefully removed them, keeping the optical nerve intact. Cracking open his sternum was something else Michael wasn't to do.  
At the sight of his internal organs, Michael wanted to run. He didn't: the gaze of the automatons kept him in place.  
Not all of the organs went into jars. The heart did - Michael was surprised by its thick stench, of the scent of the fat on the organ. The kidneys did, together. The… Michael wasn't sure whether it was a spleen or a pancreas, and felt it would be stupid to ask. He elected to look it up later.  
Once the jars were all sealed and put in a fridge, Michael's father said to stop being careful. The rest of the organs were thrown into a small barrel. Michael did not much enjoy the act of scraping the tissue and muscle from the man's bones: the act was messier than anything else and altogether unpleasant, but he did so anyway.  
As he got on with his task, his father worked on the stolen tongue. The silver rod and black base were salvaged, the old tongue having been carefully cleaned away.  
The attachment didn't actually seem all that difficult; it was just fiddly work. Michael had the man's bones clean (ish) and white (ish) by the time his father was done.  
He came closer to watch the click of the attachment into The Spine's mouth. When the rod clicked into place, a pulse of Blue Matter energy momentarily flashed over the stolen flesh. The Spine moved it experimentally.  
"Thank you." He murmured. Michael felt light headed.  
"No problem. Mike's done with the flesh - take it up to Marshmallow's bowl for us, will you?" Michael tried to think of how he'd never realised Marshmallow's "special" meals were human before now.  
"Why do we keep some of it?" He asked, indicating the fridge as Rabbit and Spine hauled the barrel upstairs.  
"Experiments, mostly. The fingers and teeth mean if Jon or the others have an accident we have it on hand." Michael nodded. "The other stuff?"  
"Not very good for Marshmallow." His father said, placing a lid on it. "She can't have the liver or the stomach - the chemicals aren't very good for her. Peter'll use it. She isn't the only Walter pet, after all."  
Michael nodded. "You did well. I was sickly for a week my first time doing this."  
"I told myself ages back I'd be a good engineer for them, no matter what." Michael's mouth was dry, but he nodded to himself and repeated, "No matter what."  
The other man beamed. "That's my boy. Help me clean this up, now, will you?"  
The Walter version of normal, it seemed, was different than the average ideal. The Walter robots, he'd learned, were realer than he'd ever realised: realer than real.  
That didn't matter much to him. He was an engineer, and now, a Mister Reed. He was going to do his job no matter how hard blood stains were to wash out of white shirts.


	2. Chapter 2

Humans bled a lot. Humans bled a lot.

The Spine stood in the centre of the room. His shirt was unbuttoned, vest and tie thrown away, and a little titanium chest was visible under the usually tightly buttoned collar. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, the titanium skin covered in blood and pieces of flesh.

Some of it was spattered over The Spine's cheek and nose, a smear on his forehead, blood blotted over his white shirt and staining it clearly. He spat out a cloud of steam, staring at the bloodied mess of the man on the floor.

He'd had a gun. The Spine wasn't really sure where that gun had gone. He'd been a little… Pre-occupied.

He'd pulled the man aside once he'd seen the gun, once he'd seen him point it at Rabbit. Pulled him into a side room.

The Spine had, in a sense, blacked out.

The man was now a bloody mess on the ground. His rib cage was open, organs a mess. The stench of blood and tissue and a dozen other unpleasant odors hung in the air. The Spine looked down to his own hand, where he grasped a thick piece of muscle, covered in fatty pieces.

He stared at the heart, head titled to the side. He did not remember tearing the man apart, and yes he must have, because he'd removed his tie and the man was missing one of his eyes.

"The Spine?" Reed appeared in the doorway. The Spine looked at him over his shoulder, unconcerned even as his eyes widened.

"I believe I snapped." The Spine looked back to the bloodied mess of human on the floor. "I don't believe any of this can be salvaged. My apologies."

"I'll call Peter and we'll clean this up." Michael murmured, taking a few steps forward. "What happened?"

"He had a gun. I believe he was going to shoot Rabbit." There was a flash of vague memory, sudden zeros and ones, as Hatchworth referred to it. "He doesn't like us. Thinks we're morally… Wrong." The Spine dropped the heart on a whim, hearing the odd splodge of sound it made as it hit the floor.

"I think perhaps I should power down for a little while, Mister Reed." The Spine said quietly.

"Yeah. Sounds good to me." Michael led the automaton backwards, taking him quickly into the dressing room so that he could wash off the blood and change.

Michael looked to the body - in its numerous pieces and fragments - and gave a soft sigh. Marshmallow would be eating well tonight, it seemed.


End file.
